


The De of Sheppard

by busaikko



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Episode Tag, Gen, Trans Character, Transgender, Transsexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-15
Updated: 2010-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:51:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt:  The program that reset Rodney's DNA undid his sexual reassignment surgery.  [Rodney is FtM]<br/>A/N: I'm pretty sure anything SGA or I say about DNA is laughably wrong.  Messina syndrome is not real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The De of Sheppard

> WEIR (to Rodney): And you said it was impossible.
> 
> McKAY: Yeah, it just came to me. I was, I was, I was floating in this, this big black emptiness and then the answer just came out of nowhere. Look, the device was designed to manipulate your D.N.A. It couldn't reverse the evolutionary advancement process because everyone's D.N.A. was different. It makes certain changes that causes the D.N.A. to evolve in ways specific to your own unique physiology.
> 
> ZELENKA: Yeah. In order to manipulate the D.N.A. back to the previous state, the programme required a precise reference point.
> 
> BECKETT: Fortunately I keep blood samples from all the Atlantis team members for baseline comparisons.  
> Tao of Rodney

* * *

John knocked on Rodney's door, and then he kicked it, and then he yelled, "McKay," stressing the second syllable. "Open up."

"Or what?" The door slid open. Rodney looked furious. "Go home, Colonel," Rodney said, and crossed his arms. "We really have nothing to talk about."

"I brought beer," John said, and held up the six-pack, trying to make it look tempting. "And every Snickers Dark in the Pegasus galaxy."

Rodney's eyes narrowed. "Is that some kind of, of humor? The chocolate thing?"

John rolled his eyes. "It's because you _always_ try to corner the dark-chocolate market. I don't like them much myself, but if you don't let me in I'll give them to Zelenka. Or something." He paused. "One of them's an Xtreme Espresso Limited Edition. I pretty much had to pay in blood."

"Ha." Rodney glared a moment longer, and then stepped aside grudgingly.

"So this sucks," John said, setting the beer down on the desk and emptying his pockets. He'd been in too much of a hurry to get any good bargains, but he figured he could buy himself another DS the next time he was on Earth. In a few weeks, or months. Anyway. It was a sacrifice for a good cause.

Rodney put the Snickers Xtreme into the top desk drawer with reverence, and then peeled one of the regular bars out of its wrapper and ate half of it in one bite.

"Your lack of empathy in the infirmary hit a new low even for you," Rodney said, sitting down on the bed. John didn't know whether to sit or what.

"Yeah." John shifted from foot to foot and, feeling awkward, stuck his hands in his pockets. "I was an asshole. I said. . . ." He swallowed down the shame of the memory. "And I'm sorry." He was tempted to say he had been blindsided and surprised and shocked and had opened his mouth before his brain kicked in, but exculpation didn't belong in an apology. Rodney grunted and jabbed the stub of the candy bar at the chair. John sat. "I had no idea."

"Which is exactly the point," Rodney snapped. "Since when do I have to tell John Sheppard -- " and he waved his hand through the air as if to indicate the millions of things about himself that John had no business knowing. Like the fact that he'd been born into a female body.

"Maybe because we're on the same team?" John knew he sounded defensive; he didn't want to, but he couldn't stop himself.

"That's a good one, coming from Chatty Cathy," Rodney bit out. "I prefer to be judged by who I am and not by my genes. How about you?"

John grimaced. The physical changes made by the Ancient device were hard to take in: the reversal of years' worth of hormone treatments and, John figured, breast reduction surgery. But mostly John felt a slow maddening burn of helplessness because he could see that Rodney was crawling out of his own skin. John wished he could undo _that_ , make Rodney back into his arrogant and unhaunted self.

"Look," Rodney said. "When I woke up this morning, I was the smartest man in the history of the universe. And now I'm not only too stupid to understand the mathematics I invented myself, my physical body's been restored to its factory settings. Hi." He gave John a wide, vicious smile. "Imagine my joy."

"Carson says there's surgery," John started, and Rodney cut in, talking over him: "I already _had_ the surgeries, Colonel. I don't _enjoy_ the thought of dealing with the physical pain again, not to mention the humiliation of being the laughingstock of my staff and colleagues."

John grabbed for control of the conversation, turning into the skid. "The people who know, we're not going to talk. Jesus Christ. I've been over this with Elizabeth and Carson."

"They put the fear of god in you, you mean."

"Glad to know you think I get off on seeing my people hurt." John narrowed his eyes. Rodney shrugged and looked discomfited, avoiding John's gaze as he took another bite of candy. And John knew he deserved that; he'd been the first one to hurt Rodney when he'd woken up, but he hadn't _meant_ it. He hadn't. "You can take downtime on Earth. Officially, to recover from the Ascension thing. Unofficially." He scratched his head where he'd slept on a cowlick wrong and it itched. "The SGC has these Goa'uld healing things. For. . . so after, for recovery, you wouldn't -- " He waved, figuring Rodney knew a hell of a lot better than he did.

Rodney sighed. "The most terrifying moment of my life was when I realized that my best chance of attaining Ascension and _not dying_ depended on you being able to tell me what to do, Colonel Incoherence. Ferris wheels, ha."

John leaned back. "It worked, didn't it?"

Rodney finished off the Snickers, getting chocolate at the corners of his mouth. John handed him a beer. "I had to use over ninety percent of my brain to make sense of your instructions." He popped the tab, sipped, looked at the label as if he'd been betrayed, and then scowled at John. John tried to look as if he couldn't believe Rodney would complain about Milwaukee's finest. "I hear Carson is having orgasms over the DNA resetting technology."

"Oh, yeah." John stretched, wanting a beer but not wanting to ask for one. He got into these stupid pointless competitions with Rodney, and couldn't ever figure out why. "We have a marine biologist who lost an eye in elementary school. Sergeant Johnson's crushed foot was scheduled to be amputated, and now maybe not. Men might want their foreskins back, people with unfortunate tattoos, all kinds of things." He held up a finger. "Thing is, Carson doesn't know how to set the reset point arbitrarily, or how much body modification it reverses." He looked at Rodney straight on. "I could do without the damn Iratus feeding scar on my neck but," John rolled a hand, trying to look like he was casual about unwrapping his secrets, "I was born with Messina syndrome." He let his voice imply a question; John had never mentioned it, but --

"Your ears give it away," Rodney said, and yeah, he'd probably done research when they were back on Earth. "But obviously it wasn't severe enough to affect your hearing or vision or. . . ." He waved vaguely at John's head.

"Rich father," John said tersely. "Surgery, braces, speech therapy." John shrugged. "Nothing I'd care to revisit."

"But _you_ don't have to." Rodney shook his head, sharply. "And it's not the same thing at all, so don't go thinking you _understand_."

John leaned forward quickly, elbows on knees, getting into Rodney's space enough to startle him and shut him up momentarily. "I get that. I do. But I would rather have you like this than dead, Rodney. I had to stand there useless and watch you flat-line. _This_ is shitty as _fuck_ , but fixable."

"I look exactly like my Aunt Eugina," Rodney said, morose. "Only with perkier breasts."

John grimaced. "I really don't want to talk about your breasts." He paused, and then added, grudgingly, "Unless, you know, talking would help, or something."

"Let me think," Rodney said, with bright sarcasm. "No. I'm sure you're good for something, but emotional support is not it."

"I'm taking my beer with me when I leave," John said. "So I can nurse my broken heart."

"You brought snacks and beer," Rodney said, eyes intense in what John now thought of as his x-ray vision face. "You're incapable of more than five minutes of meaningful communication and it'll be a cold day in hell when you start doling out hugs, so." He crossed his arms. "Did you bring me videos?"

John fished the USB drive out of his inside pocket and flipped it over to Rodney, who snatched it out of the air and then turned to dig out a laptop from the mess on his desk. "Bootleg copy of the Wormhole X-Treme! movie, or Temple of Doom?"

"Like you need to ask." Rodney moved the laptop onto the side table they used for team movie nights. "I lust for Kate Capshaw."

"You can have her," John said, leaning back in the chair, one elbow hitched over the back. "I had such a crush on Harrison Ford as a kid."

"I would never have guessed." Rodney started the file playing fullscreen, and then looked over at John, his expression a little softer than usual. "I guess you can have one of my beers," Rodney said, after a moment. "I have some stale Doritos. I know you like them soggy and crushed." He fished a bag out from under a pair of boxer shorts. It was held shut with elastic bands.

"I love you, man," John said, bobbing his head a little as he snaked out a hand to grab a can before Rodney rescinded the offer. "You're, like. It's spiritual between us."

"It so is," Rodney deadpanned. "You are such an asshole."

"Whatever," John said. "Oh look, Kate falling out of her clothes."

Rodney threw the Doritos bag at John's head. John fielded it, choking on laughter, beer burning as it dripped out his nose. Rodney told him that he was officially the most disgusting person ever. John figured, well, if that was true, he might as well finish all the Doritos.

So he did.

.: .: .: .:  
the end  
:. :. :. :.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for some challenge (flashfic?), or somebody's prompt (if it is yours, let me know). It is an episode tag for Tao of Rodney, and does what it says on the prompt. I'm not really happy with it because it's like a slice of an AU, and there's too much of my invention in it for something this short. Things that should be subtly built up to are just thrown in. But I'm not going to turn this into a novel, so for archival purposes, it's done.


End file.
